


second behind my heart is my mind

by likewinning



Category: DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Police, Comment Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for comment fic, for the prompt "Jason Todd is a private detective who uses whatever means necessary to close the case, so it's not easy working with this Boy Scout of a cop."</p>
            </blockquote>





	second behind my heart is my mind

The other cops in the precinct go silent as Jason Todd walks past them, over to Detective Roger's desk. Jason wears the same tattered leather jacket he was wearing the last time Steve saw him, grinning at everyone he sees like they're old friends.

Steve, for his part, tries to pretend like he doesn't see Jason until Jason's standing right in front of his desk. 

"I heard you were looking for me," Jason says, and Steve already kind of wants to kill him. "I called you ten times," Steve says, and Jason shrugs. "I've been out of town. Couple of old friends needed my help." Jason leans down toward him a little, taking in Steve's four days worth of stubble, half the buttons on his shirt undone, the drops of coffee on his tie. "Hey, you look like shit."

Steve stares him down. Jason, of course, looks just fine: his hair wet from the rain, his eyes bright and eager, that stupid fucking grin on his face. "My sources say you've been back for days."

"Well," Jason says. "We both know my sources are better than yours, or I wouldn't _be_ here. Besides," he adds, "you could've stopped by my office." Uninvited, Jason takes the seat in front of Steve's desk and slouches down in it.

"Didn't want to take the chance it would get blown up again while I was there," Steve says.

"Hey, I can't help it if _everyone's_ not my number one fan." He's still grinning, that endless supply of bravado that Steve used to appreciate, before –

Steve bites his lip. Takes a breath. Around them, people have started talking and working again, like there's nothing to see. "Jason –" Steve starts, and then his phone buzzes on his desk. It's a text from Romanov, sitting twenty feet away. _Either kiss and make up or beat the shit out of each other, but do **something**. We're on a timeline here._

Right. There's a _reason_ he called Jason in, and not just because they used to –

"Here's the deal," Steve says. He hands Jason a file folder, and Jason flips through it as Steve talks. Jason's foot taps against the desk every few seconds. "Couple of weeks ago, this girl goes missing. Out of thin air – one minute she's in front of this club, the next minute she's gone. Everyone thinks it's drugs, expect her to show up in a few days. But she doesn't. And then there's two more, a few nights later. All the same club, all different girls. Only thing they have in common are –"

"These girls all used to be your informants," Jason says. Quiet, serious. He looks from the pictures of the girls and up to Steve.

"I never told you –" Steve starts, and Jason stares him down in that _please, I was trained by the world's greatest detective_ sort of way and Steve sighs and says, "Right. Yes. J –" Steve starts, stops, starts again. "I've looked everywhere for these girls. Combed through all my sources. No one's seen them, there's no bodies. They just vanished."

Jason sets the file down on the desk. "So what do you want from me?"

Steve sighs again. It pissed him off when Jason didn't show up three days ago, but he's been _dreading_ this part. "You know I don't – approve – of some of the ways you do things."

" _All_ of the ways I do things," Jason corrects. Steve thinks of Jason's bloody knuckles, the switchblade he keeps next to his .45, the mess of paperwork and explanations he's had to deal with because of Jason – but also the lives that have been saved, because of the work Jason does.

"Jay," Steve says. "I need to find them, okay? And I need your help."

Jason looks at him. For a second, Steve thinks he might say no this time – the things Steve said to him, the way things ended both professionally and otherwise. It's been months, almost a _year_. But.

"Okay," Jason says, and Steve remembers how to breathe again. "We'll pay you twice what we used to. Just this once," Steve says, and Jason grins at him, fierce and a little blinding, and for five whole seconds Steve forgets that they're on a _case_. "Nah," Jason says. "Consider this one a freebie."

*

As far as Jason can tell, Steve needs to catch up on at _least_ three days of sleep, but he insists on going with Jason to the bar. It's a crummy dive in the worst part of Brownsville, dim and dirty and almost always harboring at least four known criminals, but it's kind of Jason's office away from his office – and, unlike his office, it's never been blown up.

"You don't have to be here for this part," Jason tells Steve after he orders them each a drink. He knows Steve won't really drink his, but no one in the history of the world ever looked more like a goody two-shoes cop than Steve Rogers, and the only way to make him more obvious is if he came into this place and didn't even _order_ anything.

"It's not that I don't trust you," Steve says. He's changed clothes, at least, put on a t-shirt and jeans, and Jason suspects it might be one of his because it's too fucking _small_ for him, but he still hasn't shaved. "I mean I don't, entirely, trust you," Steve corrects, and Jason kind of starts meditating there at the bar because if he's in for a self-righteous Steve Rogers speech than even strong _liquor_ won't cure that. "But I also want to be here to help, in case…"

Their drinks arrive, and just as Jason finishes downing his in one, a familiar figure comes through the doorway and heads for the men's room. Jason stands up, claps Steve on the shoulder. "No need to worry your little head about me, Rogers," he says. Steve frowns at Jason's hand on him, not like he entirely minds, but like it's –

Yeah. There's a _reason_ Jason didn't pick up those first few calls.

It's been a long year.

Jason tells Steve he's headed for the bathroom, but while he's there he politely, with minimal bloodshed, asks his guy about the latest of Steve's CIs to go missing.

He's gone for two minutes, barely long enough to get his knuckles bruised, but Steve still has a sharp glare for him when he comes back. "Jason, I _just said_ ," Steve starts, but Jason holds up his hands. "You can yell at me a bunch," Jason suggests, "or, you can let me finish off this drink and we can head three blocks west to our next lead."

Steve shuts his mouth. Jason could fucking kiss him.

*

After two days of no sleep and enough coffee to drown a Starbucks, they find all but one of the girls alive. Steve knows that Jason considers this a victory – and Steve knows that Jason knows _Steve_ considers this a failure.

Every time he loses someone, it's too close to losing –

Jason's the one who makes the arrest, while Steve gets the girls out and promises them that everything's going to be okay. He doesn't know why they believe him – this is his _fault_ \- but they do, and Jason –

Jason's waiting for him with the perp, both of them bloody but both still _breathing_ , too. Steve knows it's Jason doing him a favor, even though at this point Steve kind of wishes this guy, this _monster_ had maybe slipped and fallen from the tallest building.

Once the perp's in handcuffs and in the back of a squad car, headed for the precinct, Jason checks in with Steve. Aside from that first night, Jason's been nothing but professional, given Steve no reason to mistrust him, to be furious with himself for calling Jason in.

It kind of pisses Steve off.

Jason stands next to him, and Steve knows him well enough to hear the thoughts starting and stopping in Jason's head. Mostly Jason says whatever comes to mind and screw the consequences but sometimes – sometimes, Steve remembers, Jason's considerate.

"Come on, Rogers," Jason says finally, "I missed your birthday this year. Let's go get you a coffee and a slice of apple pie. I know a place."

And Steve should go home, go to sleep, but he follows Jason a few blocks south in the early morning light to a diner Steve remembers from when he first met Jason. Back then, Steve was a rookie cop from Brooklyn with big dreams, and Jason had just moved here from Gotham and started offering his services to anyone with a slightly different approach to the law.

Steve tried to arrest Jason twice before they went out.

Things have never been, exactly, easy, but this – sitting here in this diner, talking and laughing about anything but the case they just solved – this is.

For an hour or so, with Jason sat across the table from him grinning like a kid, Steve forgets all the reasons this never works for very long.

He forgets, and that's why when Jason gets up to pay the check, Steve asks, "So what's next?"

Jason looks at him a while, like he's categorizing and rearranging Steve into something he can solve, but he gives up halfway through and reaches up to touch Steve's face, callused thumb scraping on stubble. "I'm going back home for a while," Jason says. "Maybe I'll start up shop there, just to piss off the old man."

"Jay," Steve starts. He wraps his hand around Jason's wrist, knows it's lack of sleep and adrenaline crash and failure making him needy, but also –

Jason leans down and kisses him just once, catching the corner of Steve's mouth. "Missed you calling me that, man," Jason says, and then he pulls away, steps back. "Be good, okay?" he asks, and Steve swallows and nods. He doesn't watch Jason go, just finishes his coffee until the sun rises and then heads on home.


End file.
